Hiromasa Suzuki - Rock Joint Cither ~ Kumikyoku [Silk Road] (1973)

In the early 70's, jazz pianist and composer Hiromasa 'Colgen' SUZUKI and his self-titled trio (with Kunimitsu INABA on bass and Hideo SEKINE on drums) started working on a project of musicians which should have made a lengthy series of concept albums mixing jazz rock and world music called ROCK JOINT.

Musicians that worked around this albums were more of jazz background and some of the musicians stayed in the line-up of both albums released as ROCK JOINT projects even though the style of music was slightly different; first 'Rock Joint Biwa' was centered around the japanese instrument biwa, giving a fresh feel to album's early jazz influenced psychedelic rock (conceptually inspired by mythology in the ancient book Furukotofumi), while the second one 'Rock Joint Cither' was oriented around sitar and Indian music (cither being a mistranslation of sitar). Sounds of these albums were still very much under the impression of earlier psychedelia that for example used wah wah effects on the guitar but they were under the influence of early fusion as well; the second album could be in some respect be compared to indian fusion bands like CODONA but not as meditative and much more energetic.

Hiromasa SUZUKI would continue to record jazz albums under his name or under his trio until his death in 2001, leaving also behind him some soundtracks and collaborations with bands COUNT BUFFALOS ROCK BAND, THE FREDOM UNITY and ELECTRO KEYBOARDS ORCHESTRA as well. (source)

Hiromasa Suzuki - piano & electric piano
Kunimitsu Inaba - bass

Hideo Sekine - drums
Yoko Uehara - sitar
Takeru Muraoka - tenor & soprano saxophone
Takehisa Suzuki - bugle
Tadataka Nakazawa - trombone
Yukio Eto - flute
Hiroshi Yoshinaga - oboe
Katsuyoshi Kurusawa - horn